Oh. My. Fucking. God. Talk about a meaningless distinction.
I also ran the Canadian American Candy Exchange without seeking permission. Was I in error? The CACE thread lasted several weeks including follow-up posts, so I really don’t think it could have gotten “lost in the shuffle.”
I don’t mind asking permission, but I had no idea I was supposed to do that, and as you can see I’ve been member since 1998.
Or was it mid-1999?
LOL, I suck.
But the questions stands.
I missed my chance for McIntosh Toffee? Aargh!
You know, when I think “draconian” I usually imagine someone’s hands being cut off, or decapitation or something. When I think “police state” I think of Kim Jong-Il or Robert Mugabe or something along those lines.
Ya know, I’ve done the Elephant exchange about 4 times now, and I’ve never asked for permission. There’s never been a problem with that either.
Oh well - more typical “Changing the rules on a whim as we go.”
Nothing new here. The appeal of this place diminishes more and more every day…
It was not and is not in the rules. It is a made-up rule that Cajun Man arbitrarily tried to enforce, which is fair, but to close the thread is just showing his power.
As others have said, other threads have been opened without permission - chiefly because it’s not stated in the rules!
If you want this to be a new rule, you’d better add it. FTR, it’s a fair rule, but even I didn’t know it was a necessity to e-mail a mod.
TubaDiva, thanks for coming in here and being nice. Cajun Man, no thanks to you for coming in here and not even being able to be adult about it.
I’d like some more input from the mods here. If previous exchange threads have gone through the mods for permission, then this can’t be a new rule. Yet we have at least two threads started without the powers-that-be being informed. This seems like more of an assumed courtesy than anything. Have you just been taking it for granted that some of these threads have recieved permission.
It was a self-serving power-flexing move by an asshole who likely has so little going for them in their own life that they feel a need to assert their power wherever and whenever possible here just so that maybe someone will recognize that they are alive and are people to be rekoned with. Usually people of this sort have small penises, are impotent at best in their workplaces, and have insipid posters of kittens hanging from tree limbs with cliche phrases about their home in a desperate attempt to pretend someone somewhere cares, even if it’s only a paper cat that they paid for. Unfortunately, mean-spirited power moves tend to backfire, and the asshole tends to be mocked for infant terrible they really are. Emphasis on the infant part.
This sort of behavior by the mods is exactly the reason I have no intent at this time to re-up come spring. There aren’t rules or guidelines providing structure here- merely the whims and moods of an insecure cluster-fuck of an in-group with power. Watching the new mods get declared and seeing their subsequent decisions play out is reminds me of the paranoia and poorly directed flailings of deeply inbred royalty lines just prior to the end of their empires.
Frankly, they can all suck my hairy twat. They closed the thread too late- we already have established an off-board email list of participants and done 90% of the backwork for implementing such an exchange. Once emails are sent this week, all that remains are the posts that things are sent, follow-ups, thank yous, and perhaps questions or trouble-shooting. If our infant Napoleons wish to tantrum about not being consulted or in control over the real-life choices of adult members utilizing the federal mail system then we should let them. I vote we go register at Yahoo! groups or similar for the exchange. Free, easy to use, conveinent, and best of all, not subject to the histrionics of mods with sand in their pussies.
Agreed. I’d like to think I’m pretty easy going about how this place is moderated. The mods and admins are human and are therefore bound to make mistakes or decisions with which I may not agree. It’s been getting a little ham-handed around here, though, and that’s not kosher. Requests for clarification are often met with scorn and derision. The haugtiness and condescension is starting to getting out of hand.
This change in scenerey isn’t much to get worked up about, but it sure will make me think long and hard about parting wth my hard-earned money when it comes time to renew my membership next year.
So, who’s up for a Bodily Fluids Exchange Thread?
Dunno – that been cleared with HQ first? 
Ah, we’ll do it first and tell 'em later: it’s easier to seek forgiveness than ask permission. Off hijack, I don’t normally disagree with the Powers That Be, but this seems a silly and arbitrary “rule” that’s been produced seemingly without precedent, the post hoc rationalisations are just silly, and closing it and telling the OP to open a new thread and mention that they have “permission” is the height of childishness.
The circling of the Mod and Admin wagons that happens whenever someone makes a dumb call is pretty silly, too: c’mon, it won’t kill you to admit that someone made a mistake - hell, here in the Pit someone backing down from a mistaken or untenable position usually earns them respect for fessing up, not scorn for the error. Time to set an example, guys.
Heh. Isn’t that a tautology?
Preach it, sistah!
What pisses me off is the whole “You’re a longtime member, so you should know better” thing. The sticky said nothing about needing permission for requests intended for SDMB members. In fact, the rule came about as a reaction to people e-mailing protest letters for various things. If the rule is to apply to other situations, then TPTB should get together and explicitly say so and not leave us members to guess at their intentions, because IMNSHO, that is the root of the current issue.
Robin
I agree that there should be definite guidelines published as to what the administration regards as the type of thread which require prior consultation before publishing on the board. I can see that the staff have had one idea about such threads – public appeals tend to have been referred to the administration through ATMB for some time now. But things are vague when it comes to traditional events like Secret Santa.
No it’s not an arbitrary decision, I saw film at 11 of Cajun Man pulling it out of his ass.
A couple of years ago, late at night, there was a knock at my office door. It was the building’s security guard.
“Sir? You’re not supposed to be here.”
“According to my boss, I am. I’m ________. This is my office.”
“You can’t be here after hours. You didn’t get checked in.”
“Sorry – there was no one at the desk when I came in.”
“Sir, I can’t be at the desk every minute!”
“Of course not. I don’t mind that you weren’t at the desk, I’m just saying that must be why you missed me when I came in.”
“Sir, *I * didn’t miss you. You failed to check in.”
“Okay, if you say so, but --”
“Sir, you have to come with me.”
“Why? My name’s on the list of authorized tenants, isn’t it (note: the guard is carrying a clipboard with the list on it)?”
“Sir, you have to come downstairs with me.”
“I’ve already been here for three hours. I’m almost ready to leave anyway.”
“Sir, the rule says you can’t be here without checking in.”
“Well, you’ve got the list with you. Can’t I be checked in right here?”
“No.”
“Why not?”
“Because you have to check in at the desk!”
“But that’s only because the desk is where you and the list are most of the time. Now you’re both right here.”
“Sir, I’m in charge of enforcing the security rules here. You have to come downstairs to be checked in if you want to continue to be here. It won’t take long: I’ve already marked you down as arriving three hours ago.”
“(Looong pause). So you’ve already done the actual work of checking me in, and I just have to go downstairs to the front desk, turn around, and come back here.”
“That’s right, sir. I’ll get the light switch on your way out.”
I know that one.
I once went to work on the weekend with a bunch of other people. We all had 24/7 access on our passes but it turned out that one of the guys, who came with someone else, had left his pass in his Friday office clothes.
When the security guard came around he had a list of our names and ticked us all off and then asked to see our passes. When he got to Dave there was no pass to see. Dave pulled out his photo driver’s licence with the same name on it, we all said, “Yeah, that’s Dave alright and you’ve seen all our passes,” but the security guard made Dave go home and come back with pass so that he could work the rest of the day. So having his name on a list, proof that that was his name and verification from maybe 10 people that he really was that guy just didn’t cut it.
You know, I’ve never understood how these threads turn into this sort of thing. More likely than not this is a simple misunderstanding. How do we get from that to “histrionics of mods with sand in their pussies.”
Then there’s this whole “power hungry mod” line. These people are moderators on an internet message board. What power do they have exactly? How much fun can it be to abuse their ability to close threads?
Lastly, this isn’t something that they’ve pulled out of their asses. Tuba and Cajun have already stated that a good number of these threads have checked with the mods before starting. This is a miscommunication, not ham handed jack booted thuggery.
I don’t think the thread should have been closed and I think having the person who started the thread e-mail the mods should be good enough to reopen it. I also think it would be just dandy if this were a clearly posted rule. I don’t think that we need to make this a bigger deal than it is.